I recently finished a book about Hygge, called Hygge. The Danish Art of Happiness by Marie Tourell Soderberg. I’ve reviewed it on my lifestyle blog, if you want to have a look. In the book there were a few recipes, including this one for Danish Thick Pancakes.

The recipe is made by Ina Schack Vestergaard. She makes them for her grandchildren. I was amazed to read the recipe, is made with yeast, but without leaving it to rise. The pancakes are delicious and I’ll make them again and again. I used half of the ingredients mentioned in the recipe and I’ve modified it a bit.

As you can see, the pancakes are so fluffy, I never had pancakes like this before. I loved them, my husband loved them and the dog was starring at them so much that I gave him a small piece too.

Danish Thick Pancakes. Ingredients for 15 pancakes:

– 250ml milk
– 250g white plain flour
– 25g yeast (I used dried Easy-bake)
– 5 free-range medium eggs (or 4 large ones)
– pinch of sugar
– oil for frying

Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm milk. Separate the egg yolks and the whites. In a bowl, mix together the milk with the flour, yolks and sugar until all the ingredients are incorporated.
Pour boiling water in a high pan and place the bowl with the batter on top of the water. The heat will make the yeast rise. If the bowl touches the water it will start to cook, so make sure the bowl will not be in direct contact with the water.

Leave it in the bowl and whisk the egg whites until fluffy. Keeping the bowl on top of the water bath, fold in the egg whites with care. Continue to fold until all the egg whites are incorporated.

On top left is how the batter looks like before adding the egg whites and on top right, the egg whites are incorporated into the batter. Heat the oil over medium heat.

The oil should be 1cm high in the pan, so the pancakes have plenty of oil to cook in. Using a ladle, pour the pancake batter. The pancakes will cook very fast, so flip them in a minute or so. After they are cooked on both sides, take them out and put them on a paper kitchen towel, to remove the excess oil.

They are called Danish Thick Pancakes because they will rise in the pan. It’s really lovely to see them puff up.

Serve them with jam or what you like. I had a couple with feta cheese and a couple with two types of jam, with my homemade Orange jam and with shop-bought strawberry jam with whole strawberries in it. It’s definitely a Hygge experience to eat them.